Making India work

or a nation that has one of the highest growth rates in the world, India isplagued by poverty and corruption. Sixty years after Independence, Indiaaccounts for around 36 per cent of the world s poor. The deepening fault linesbetween the haves and the have-nots have given rise to skewed developmentand widespread discontent.William Nanda Bissell, managing director of the successful Fabindia chain,believes India s poverty is a direct result of its poor management by ruling eliteswho have mastered the art of winning elections but have no interest in the deeperissues of governance. He argues that economic development that consumeslarge amounts of natural resources and generates enormous pollution is not aluxury available to countries that are beginning their development now.Instead, he proposes a radical new paradigm for development that delinksconsumption from quality of life while strengthening the natural environmentin the process. The central themes of Making India Work echo the ideas andbeliefs that underpin the Constitution of India but they venture beyond thehackneyed phrases of development to focus on strategies which can, Bissellbelieves, end poverty in India in five years.QUOTE Making India Work [is] a book that functions on the premise that Indiaisn t poor, just poorly managed, and follows up with a series of ideas forchange.